


I Could Drink a Case of You (The Art of Coping)

by ArtsyAfrodite



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Fic!February, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 22:19:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtsyAfrodite/pseuds/ArtsyAfrodite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was the art of coping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Could Drink a Case of You (The Art of Coping)

It was sinful in a way, the over-indulging; the self-massacre.  A bottle here and a bottle there, turned into a case here and a case there.  A raw egg hadn’t seen a skillet in months, a glass and beer being where it would always end up.  This was as much a routine as his self-examinations in the bathroom mirror.   _Look at yourself only to become disgusted again._

His knuckles were permanently cut and swollen, shards of looking glass more than likely in his bloodstream now.  He couldn’t even stand the distorted and blurred reflection of who he supposedly was in the countless glasses he went through at the Alibi.  But it was never about whom he was; rather it was about whom he was running from – himself.  It was such mockery.  But no one ever told him to wallow in self-pity, remember and become a drunk, yet he did.  And it wasn’t nearly seven deadly as it was one lethal.  Funny how a single person could be so influential in absence. 

Just the thought of him hurt to the bone now.

It was no surprise; not like anyone said they would believe Mickey Milkovich would become a lush when hell froze over.  So no one was ice skating on the devil’s pond while he stared down the glass neck of his demise – yet another false deliverance.  It was getting old and clarity was something Mickey longed for; to be able to look around and not see ghosts of  _him._   His vision was blurred, his judgment so much worse, with drunken Freudian slips at the bar and mindless fucks in the restroom.  He’d find himself stumbling out, tripping over his own two feet, eventually falling flat on his face.  But he welcomed the pain.  So he downed another beer here and another whiskey there with  _the other one’s_  portrait painted in his drunken vision –  _the redhead._   Ian fucking Gallagher would be the death of him. 

Yet, he could drink a case of him and still be on his feet.

*****************

_“I didn’t come here for you.”_         

It’s a unique state of consciousness, to be caught in the space between wakefulness and sleep.  It’s a nightmarish threshold when the pending dream is a once lived reality.  What dreams may come, what comes may dream or be a dream, and it’s like hypnosis and insomnia wrapped in one.  Alcohol was the only way to feel, to touch false reality.  So one with guys became a dozen with himself. 

There’s a scratching at his brain now, and the only thing Ian wants is to be fully awake again.  He wants to scrape out the matter from underneath the fingernails of the involuntary images, taking them back to reclaim the loss as his own and pack the pieces of cerebellum back into the lines scratched out of his mind.  The tendrils are ghostly, but the grip they’ve placed around his throat are as real as the face he sees with each closing of his eyes, each drop of vodka downed, the blue piercing through the black of drunken eyelids forcefully crushing into blown pupils.  This was the art of coping.

_“Don’t…”_

And a staggered word pierced his back like a knife thrown with the utmost precision and calculated force, the timing just right and wrong all in the same breath.  Ian held his own breathing the moment the sound hit his ears, even being from lips that weren’t  _his_  and he still has yet to exhale, the one utterance stuck in his lungs.  He doesn’t want to lose the last remembrances of him so he’s refused to breathe over the last five months.  Basic training was supposed to knock the wind out of you – not one south side thug who had such power over him, even miles away. 

_“Don’t what?”_

Don’t’ leave.  But he was the one who turned away after all, wasn’t he? Ian steeled himself.  He wouldn’t add insult to injury, not now.  He was a runner and he accepted that. 

_“Just…”_

Just stay.  But now, here lies a soldier.  False name.  False bed.  False pretenses.  Just false.  Everything is one big dream in a dream, and he disassembles to assemble his weapon, disassembles to assemble his mind, but his heart?  He throws himself into being the best soldier he can be, throws himself even harder into a vodka bottle, but there’s always a piece missing, and the piece has a human name.  Mickey fucking Milkovich would be the death of him.

Yet, he could drink a case of him and still be on his feet.

**Author's Note:**

> Please listen to the song, "A Case of You" by Joni Mitchell as this was inspired by it. I wrote how I felt Ian and Mickey would deal with being apart. Thank you for reading. :)
> 
> This was for fic!february (1st submission). I posted it late on AO3 lol.


End file.
